Coffee with the Chef: Jose 'Miguel' Palaguachi of Positano Restaurant and Pizzeria in Wayne

Executive chef Jose "Miguel" Palaguachi, 44, left his native Ecuador in 1988 "to try a different life." That different life, he hoped, would include cooking. "I always loved to cook. My mom, my dad, everyone in my family cooks." He landed at an Italian restaurant in Rockland County called Posa Posa and slowly worked his way up. "I was dishwasher, bus boy, waiter, in the salad station. I learned everything on the job."

Today he heads the kitchen at Positano, a fine southern Italian restaurant that last June received three out of four stars in The Record. Here Palaguachi, the father of two, discloses how to cook pasta perfectly, make a red sauce and keep from burning your hands in the kitchen.

Dish I'm most proud of: Baked chicken. We bake the chicken for two minutes on each side in a 550- degree convection oven. A regular oven takes too long.

Favorite local restaurant: Rumba Cubana in North Bergen. It's a Cuban restaurant, and I love the vaca frita [a fried shredded beef dish].

The most difficult part of being a chef: Dealing with employees. People want to stay on the phone. They come late. It's hard to be a boss.

Favorite kitchen tool: Tongs. You can do everything with them. They prevent you from burning your hands.

To make a good tomato sauce: You need good ingredients. I buy 100 percent Pomace olive oil. I use Anacapri canned tomatoes, and fresh onion, fresh celery and fresh garlic.

To make perfect pasta: Put pasta in salted water – the salt keeps in the pasta's flavor — and turn it often. Cook it al dente. How do you know when it's al dente? Take one strand out and cut it with a knife. If you see a little white in the middle, it's done. Rinse in cold water so the pasta stops cooking. Then don't just ladle the sauce over the pasta; sauté the pasta with the sauce in a pan so that the sauce penetrates the pasta. How much sauce? One ladle per person – or 8 ounces of pasta.

I keep my weight down by … I eat so much but I don't get fat. That's because I stay away from fats, heavy creams. People used to eat a lot of fat, but not now. My customers, they don't like too much fat.

My secret cooking trick: It's love and heart. If you don't love what you are doing, the food won't be good.